al-qaeda chief ayman al-zawahiri the coordinator 2015 part 4-1- tb-36- akhtar mohammad mansour shah...

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Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri The Coordinator 2015 Part 4-1- TB-36- Akhtar Mohammad Mansour Shah Mohammed-17

While NATO sees no danger of Islamic State (ISIS) gaining a strong enough foothold in Afghanistan to represent a serious threat to regional security, Russia is concerned that the jihadist organization is growing in strength and may soon supplant the Taliban – and Moscow fears that ISIS has ultimate plans to make Central Asia part of its caliphate.

“Those who claim that the Taliban would remain a closed Pashtun-centered movement and would never expand northward are making a mistake. The Taliban would definitely move into Central Asia either as an affiliate of Islamic State or as part of an alliance of Islamist radicals already in existence in this part of the world, like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the anti-China East Turkistan Islamic Movement, etc.”

Moreover, this is only part of the long-term strategy. Once Afghanistan falls under the rule of ISIS, Qatar will proceed further, to the northern border of the Muslim-populated China's Xinjiang Province. The goal is to have a stronghold to prevent the coming onstream of another major infrastructure project, the Power of Siberia pipeline, designed to supply Russian natural gas to China.”

Dec 12, The Afghan Taliban released an audio message yesterday it said was from leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, vehemently rejecting reports of his death in a firefight with his own commanders as "enemy propaganda". "We do not have any reports about the incident and the Afghan Taliban spokesman has also denied the reports", Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Qazi Khalilullah said during media briefing. "I listened to the clip and it looks fake". The Taliban chief said he was "safe and healthy" and repeatedly dismissed rumors about his death and rifts in the Taliban leadership. The statement on Twitter followed days of uncertainty over the fate of Mansour, after multiple reports said he had been badly wounded in the shootout at the home of another Taliban commander in Quetta, western Pakistan, late on Tuesday. "I have not seen Kuchlak for years". "Brothers, this news is baseless, there is no doubt, this is the propaganda from the enemy". "We have Ulama (religious scholars) and astute leaders who can resolve, intervene in such matters and never let it escalate to such a state", it says. Another senior Taleban source said that the group is buying time to select a new leader and bring their organisation out of "this sudden shock". "It will be released soon", Zabihulla Mujahid said. Omar was killed in 2013 and was in charge of the Taliban for two decades. Voice Herald http://voiceherald.com/2015/12/12/afghan-taliban-denies-death-of-leader-mullah-akhtar-mansoor.html

Dec 13, TEHRAN (FNA)- Should ISIL strengthen its presence in Afghanistan, the United States could find common ground with the terrorist group, also known as ISIL, to counter Moscow, Beijing and Tehran, Iranian political scientist Pir Mohammad Mollazehi said.

If ISIL loses control over its caliphate in Iraq and Syria, it could well try to expand into what is known as the Greater Khorasan region. "They will use Afghanistan as a launching pad" to take this area under control, the analyst told Sputnik. Apparently, this process has already started.

"Daesh (ISIL) is already present in Afghanistan. Militants have been strengthening their presence in the provinces of Badakhshan and Helmand. They have recruited new fighters from locals, who have been disenchanted with the Taliban's policies. Those are mostly

The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.–Winston Churchill

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people, who did not accept Mullah Akhtar Mansour as the group's new leader following the death of Mullah Omar," the expert explained. The subsequent infighting resulted in several groups leaving the Taliban and significantly weakening the movement. ISIL is trying to appeal to the groups disappointed in their former allies.

Pir Mohammad Mollazehi believes that there is a possibility of the US reaching some sort of an accommodation with ISIL to counter Russia.

"There is a possibility that ISIL could move to a region, where they will not receive assistance from the West but the US will also not pose a threat to them. US warplanes could launch attacks against ISIL targets in Iraq and Syria but Washington will not conduct a similar campaign in Afghanistan or Central Asian countries. There is even a possibility that the US will strike a deal with ISIL in Afghanistan to counter Russia, China and Iran," the analyst warned.

Pir Mohammad Mollazehi maintains that ISIL will find new sources of income once it settles in Afghanistan. The obvious choice will be to take over the lucrative opium trade since they will receive access to poppy fields. ISIL could also tap into Afghanistan's natural resources and sell them via the same routes they use to sell oil smuggled from Iraq and Syria.

An Afghan farmer works on a poppy field collecting the green bulbs swollen with raw opium, the main ingredient in heroin. "Approximately 90 percent of world opium is located in the Helmand province, the same region where ISIL is becoming more active. The group's goal is to take opium poppy cultivation territories under control. It will also receive access to key drug trafficking channels," the expert detailed.ISIL is widely considered to be the wealthiest terrorist organization in the world. The group makes money on all types of illegal activities, including oil smuggling, extortion and human trafficking. Expanidng to Afghansitan will not be an issue of money.

"Afghans, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Uyghurs and Chechen fighters, who join ISIL, have established armed gangs with a financial base. ISIL, therefore, does not have to pay its new recruits in Afghanistan," the expert explained.

Cees Comment ; some of us do remember Operation Cyclone; JANUARY 15, 1998 and Sleeping With the Devil: How U.S. and Saudi Backing of Al Qaeda Led to 9/11i

How Jimmy Carter and I Started the Mujahideenby JEFFREY ST. CLAIR - ALEXANDER COCKBURNQ: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the

Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the

Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

Brzezinski: It isn’t quite that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight





against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn’t believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don’t regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic [integrisme], having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?Q: Some stirred-up Moslems? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today.

Brzezinski: Nonsense! It is said that the West had a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid. There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner and without demagoguery or emotion. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among Saudi Arabian fundamentalism, moderate Morocco, Pakistan militarism, Egyptian pro-Western or Central Asian secularism? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries.

There are at least two editions of this magazine; with the perhaps sole exception of the Library of Congress, the version sent to the United States is shorter than the French version, and the Brzezinski interview was not included in the shorter version.

The above has been translated from the French by Bill Blum author of the indispensible, “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II” and “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower” Portions of the books can be read at: <http://members.aol.com/superogue/homepage.htm>Preface: The director of the National Security Agency under Ronald Reagan – Lt. General William Odom – noted:

Because the United States itself has a long record of supporting terrorists and using terrorist tactics, the slogans of today’s war on terrorism merely makes the United States look hypocritical to the rest of the world.

Odom also said: By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to

pass a law against international terrorism – in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation.

Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted on CNN that the U.S. organized and supported Bin Laden and the other originators of “Al Qaeda” in the 1970s to fight the Soviets.Brzezinski told Al Qaeda’s forefathers – the Mujahadin:

We know of their deep belief in god – that they’re confident that their struggle will succeed. That land over – there is yours – and you’ll go back to it some day, because your fight will prevail, and you’ll have your homes, your mosques, back again, because your cause is right, and god is on your side.

Cees Comment Dec 2015, The former commander of US Special Forces in Afghanistan and Iraq said that without the Iraq war, the Islamic State wouldn’t exist today, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel. He also blamed a poor emotional response to the 9/11





attacks. “First we went to Afghanistan, where Al-Qaeda was based, then we went to Iraq,”

Flynn told the newspaper in an interview. “Instead of asking ourselves why the phenomenon of terror occurred, we were looking for locations. This is a major lesson we must learn in order not to make the same mistakes again.”

He also highlighted the consequences of toppling Middle Eastern dictators – a strategy that continued with President Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya.

“It was huge error,” he continued. “As brutal as Saddam Hussein was, it was a mistake to just eliminate him. The same is true for Muammar Gaddafi and for Libya, which is now a failed state. The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that decision.”

Flynn said the US had Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the alleged head of the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), in the Camp Bucca detention center in February 2004 in Iraq, but he was cleared as harmless by a US military commission and released in December 2004.

“We were too dumb. We didn’t understand who we had there at that moment. When 9/11 occurred, all the emotions took over, and our response was, ‘Where did those bastards come from? Let’s go kill them. Let’s go get them,’” said Flynn. “Instead of asking why they attacked us, we asked where they came from. Then we strategically marched in the wrong direction.”

Syria: ISIS is attacking a weakened Taliban in a bid to take over the Afghanistan terror group's territory, it has been claimed. Disillusioned Taliban fighters are even switching allegiance to ISIS as the murderous jihadists expand operations into the country. The Taliban has become increasingly divided amidst a bitter feud stemming from the death of founder and leader Mullah Omar. Now Daesh is said to be gaining an increasingly bloody foothold in the country, with chilling new pictures showing recruits at the "Sheikh Jalaluddin training camp” - thought to be in the eastern province of Nangarhar. A diplomat in Kabul told The Times that ISIS was now "the flag of convenience for disaffected Taliban, Pakistani Taliban, and an assortment of Chechen and Uzbek fighters".

An Afghan branch of ISIS could become an international threat within three to five years, he added.

Dec 11, KABUL, Afghanistan and Pakistan Agree to Reopen Talks With an Absent Taliban Afghanistan — Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States have agreed, once again, to restart peace talks with the Taliban, but there is still one big piece of the effort missing: the Taliban themselves. The Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, returned home from an ice-breaking visit to Pakistan to contend not only with fallout from a skeptical and largely anti-Pakistan public, but also with the resignation of his intelligence chief and a new body count from the latest Taliban rampage: the siege of residential buildings in Kandahar, near the largest United States military base in southern Afghanistan. The attack raised serious questions about whether the insurgents would be interested in talking peace.

One soldier has been killed and three injured in a bomb blast in Quetta, Pakistan. The explosion occurred at a checkpoint in the afternoon of December 12, officials said. In a separate incident in Karachi, a retired army officer was shot dead when two men on a motorcycle opened fire on him in a residential district.A spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility for both attacks in an email received by Radio Mashaal.





Dec 11, KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan says its forces have repelled a Taliban attack on the Kandahar airport that lasted more than 24 hours and killed 50 people, mainly civilians. The Defense Ministry said Thursday that the dead included 38 civilians, 10 Afghan soldiers and two police. It said the 11 “terrorists” who took part in the assault were killed, and the fighting ended late Wednesday.

Dec 12, KABUL: The Taliban mounted a car bomb attack on a guesthouse near the Spanish Embassy in Kabul Friday, wounding at least seven people and further dimming any hopes of peace talks with moderate elements of the Islamist insurgent movement.

Dec 09, Kabul - Dozens of deaths have been reported from intense fighting between rival Taliban factions western Afghanistan, according to government officials. "In the last 48 hours of battle, between rival Taliban commanders in Shindand district, we have reports of more than 100 people killed and 27 others wounded from both sides," Herat provincial police spokesperson Abdul Rauf Ahmadi said. Prisoners were reportedly taken by both sides. Ahmadi said both factions have called for reinforcements to continue the fighting. The battle began in the village of Zerko, and many families have been forced to flee the area."So far we do not have civilian casualties," he said.

The ‘Taliban Five’ Freed for Bergdahl Have Resumed ‘Threatening Activities’by JORDAN SCHACHTEL10 Dec 2015 GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, CUBA— The five Taliban commanders who were exchanged for Bowe Bergdahl – a U.S. soldier who deserted his post in Afghanistan and was captured by the Taliban shortly after doing so – have resumed “threatening activities,” after being released to Qatar from Guantánamo Bay last year, according to a new House Armed Services Committee report.“Some of the Taliban Five have engaged in threatening activities since being transferred to Qatar,” the report said. The Taliban Five – Mohammad Fazl, Mohammed Nabi, Abdul Haq Wasiq, Mullah Norullah Nori, and Khairullah Khairkhwa – were freed from Guantánamo in exchange for Bergdahl.

If ISIS swallows the Taliban, will Afghanistan become a caliphate? 11 December 2015 SERGEI STROKAN, VLADIMIR MIKHEEV, SPECIALLY FOR RIR While NATO sees no danger of Islamic State (ISIS) gaining a strong enough foothold in Afghanistan to represent a serious threat to regional security, Russia is concerned that the jihadist organization is growing in strength and may soon supplant the Taliban – and Moscow fears that ISIS has ultimate plans to make Central Asia part of its caliphate. Russia and the West diverge in their assessments of whether Islamic State (ISIS) is expanding geographically and constitutes a disaster waiting to happen in Afghanistan. Lack of understanding and cooperation on the ground might once again, as in Syria, only





be a prelude to a rough awakening to the actual scale of the threat.In the previous week NATO has pledged to maintain the 12,000-strong contingent

of its troops and instructors throughout 2016 as part of its Resolute Support mission. Yet the alliance has dismissed the assumption that ISIS could be in a position to dismember the Taliban, radicalize the local tribes, and turn it into a province of the caliphate.This does not resonate with articles in the British newspapers The Times and The Guardian this week describing in detail the scale of state-building and strategic ambitions of ISIS.

It is also not compatible with the opinion of General Stanley McChrystal (retired), who helped destroy ISIS’s predecessor organization (ISI) in Iraq from 2006 to 2008. “If the West sees ISIS as an almost stereotypical band of psychopathic killers,” he has said, “we risk dramatically underestimating them.”Moscow views recent developments in Afghanistan in an alarming context. Russian

Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov has revealed that, according to intelligence sources, ISIS has “established its presence in 25 out of 34 Afghan provinces.”

According to UN experts’ estimates, the numbers of ISIS fighters in the four districts south of Jalalabad total between 1,200 and 1,600. Some are elite fighters. This apart, Taliban militants are also defecting to ISIS.

Should Moscow look well ahead and start mapping out contingency plans? Talking to Troika Report, Alexander Ignatenko, president of the Moscow-based Institute of Religion and Politics, assessed the level of the security threat to Russia and its allies posed by the gradual advancement of ISIS into the non-Arab region.

“The expansion of ISIS in the region has gone along proven routes, with its sponsors simply buying out whole units of Al-Qaeda or other extremist groups in a particular country. An explicit example is Boko Haram (in Nigeria): Originally this organization had no relations with ISIS, but then it allowed itself to be bought, swore allegiance to ISIS, and furthermore, became the nucleus of what is called the ‘Islamic State’s vilayet of Western Africa’.”

– Are we witnessing the implementation of the ISIS grand project of a caliphate stretching from Morocco to Central Asia?“Not exactly. There is a transparent geopolitical and economic interest for ISIS’s sponsor – and this is Qatar – when it comes to Afghanistan: to prevent the construction of a gas pipeline known as TAPI. The idea of TAPI is to supply gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India.

“Moreover, this is only part of the long-term strategy. Once Afghanistan falls under the rule of ISIS, Qatar will proceed further, to the northern border of the Muslim-populated China's Xinjiang Province. The goal is to have a stronghold to prevent the coming onstream of another major infrastructure project, the Power of Siberia pipeline, designed to supply Russian natural gas to China.”What Ignatenko is basically saying amounts to the following uncomfortable truth: Qatar, for the purpose of maintaining its present dominant position on the global market of liquefied natural gas (LNG), is ready to eliminate alternative suppliers by using Islamic State militants either as an instrument of regime change or, if this tactic fails, as a potent irritant that will create regional instability and, consequently, raise the risks of any investment enterprises.– An opinion has been floated that Russia should not get involved in the Afghanistan quagmire. Yet, Russia is currently fighting ISIS in Syria, so why not confront it on





the ground much closer to Central Asia, which is rightly considered Russia’s ”soft underbelly”?

“Those who claim that the Taliban would remain a closed Pashtun-centered movement and would never expand northward are making a mistake. The Taliban would definitely move into Central Asia either as an affiliate of Islamic State or as part of an alliance of Islamist radicals already in existence in this part of the world, like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the anti-China East Turkistan Islamic Movement, etc.”– Is this threat being neglected or underestimated in Moscow?“It is my understanding that the Russian political and military leadership is getting ready for such a scenario. Certain pre-emptive measures are being taken within the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Both organizations regularly hold military exercises with the aim of confronting the threat of terrorism.”

While acknowledging the threat of ISIS in Afghanistan, Russia’s top officials are not in a hurry to get involved. Moscow will “thoughtfully” assess requests from the government in Kabul for arms supplies, said Zamir Kabulov, Russian presidential special envoy for Afghanistan. At the same time, Russian Permanent Representative to NATO Alexander Grushko pointed out that in 12 years the 140,000-strong NATO contingent in Afghanistan has failed to eliminate the internal security threats. As long NATO considers Afghanistan its zone of strategic interest, it is unlikely that Russia would step in.Yet, the security environment here is volatile. The gearing up of internal feuds among local radicals has been evidenced lately by the as-yet unconfirmed death of the Taliban’s elected leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour, who was reportedly targeted by militants of an ISIS-led breakaway cell. It appears likely, since Mullah Mansour supported the Afghan-focused agenda and was reluctant to accept the expansionist drive of Islamic State.This is only proof that the internal strife in the Taliban is heating up. Should the Taliban split and end up being reformatted into an expansionist force targeting neighboring countries, it will become part of a global issue. The consolidation and internationalization of terrorist groupings all along the Arc of Instability will require a concerted response by Russia and its allies.

Jihadist Gives Account of Afghan Taliban Nearly Eliminating IMU, Demands IS Address HappeningsJihadist News : December 11, 2015 A jihadist gave an account of the fighting between the Afghan Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) that has allegedly resulted in the capture of the IMU leader and the near-elimination of the group, and demanded that the Islamic State (IS) address what has happened. In a message posted on Twitter on December 10, 2015, the jihadist, “Tahir Jan,” gave what is called “a statement on the truth of what happened in Zabul,” discussing what transpired between the Afghan Taliban and the IMU from the point after the leader of the latter, Uthman Ghazi, questioned the fate of Mullah Muhammad Omar before he was announced dead. The IMU pledged allegiance to the IS, which ignited violence between the two groups in Zabul, and led to the Afghan Taliban capturing Uthman Ghazi, killing dozens of fighters and their





families, and practically eliminating the group. He remarked: “What America and its agents could not do in 14 years, the Taliban did in 24 hours”.The message also alleged that Afghan Taliban fighters killed Mullah Mansour Dadullah, the leader of a splinter faction within the group, and 45 members of his family. The author then expressed disappointment in the failure of IS leaders and Khorasan Province to speak on the incident. He wrote:Most of the brothers in the Islamic State in Khorasan or their supporters are amazed by this silence by the Caliph, Sheikh Muhammad al-‘Adnani, the governor of Khorasan, and the media of the Islamic State, may Allah preserve and support them, as if nothing had happened, even though a month had passed since the events. Is the blood of our brothers and sisters cheap to this degree?Indeed, we see slowness by the governor of Khorasan in helping the families with money and other things!! According to what appears to us now, and we hope from the Caliph to hold him accountable if he is neglectful, for we have pledged allegiance so that the blame of anyone would not take us in Allah, and if he is excused then we ask Allah to forgive us and him.




i http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/09/sleeping-with-the-devil-how-u-s-and-saudi-backing-of-al-qaeda-led-to-911.html

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